Home for a Cowboy (Windsor, Wyoming Book 1)

by Amy Aislin

  “I didn’t know you could have this type of meal outside of a kitchen,” Marco said. He polished off his last asparagus and set his metal plate and utensils aside.

  “You’ve never been camping?” Las didn’t sound judgmental, merely curious.

  “Nah. My parents aren’t the camping type. Hell, they don’t even garden.”

  “Not outdoorsy people?”

  “Definitely not. When we were kids, my older sister and I—” Marco broke off with a soft chuckle, remembering. “We begged my parents to take us camping. So they borrowed a tent from one of their friends, one of those tiny, dome-shaped ones that only fit two people, and set it up in the backyard. That’s the closest I’ve ever come to camping.”

  “Hate to break it to you,” Las said, setting his own plate near his feet, “but that’s not camping.”

  “Oh, I know. If you can go inside to pee or if it gets too cold, it definitely doesn’t count.” Marco paused for a second, then, “We did both of those things in case you were wondering.”

  Las’s laughter curled into him, made him sigh into the coming night.

  Plate in hand, Las stood and motioned for Marco to pass him his dirty dishes. “Can you do me a favor?” he asked. “In the cabinet in the tent, there’s a collapsible drying rack. Can you grab it?”

  Inside the tent, it was pretty basic but very much lived in. Marco could tell Las spent a lot of time here. The cabinet on one side held the cooking inventory—spices, pots and pans, spatulas, canned foods, a can opener, sponges, biodegradable soap, metal dishes and cutlery. Marco grabbed the drying rack and, assuming they were about to wash their dishes, a sponge and the soap. Across from the cabinet was a foldable metal table, sister to the one outside, with small piles of clothes—T-shirts, jeans, socks, underwear, flannel.

  Marco tried not to look at the underwear but couldn’t help but notice Las was a briefs guy. God. Las’s package, snugly wrapped in tight blue briefs below a tapered waist. A defined chest Marco would run his palms over. Muscled, hairy legs tangled with Marco’s.

  Closing his eyes, Marco sucked in oxygen, held it, and counted to five. He still had a semi. At least his breathing was under control.

  Turning away from the temptation of Las’s underwear, he took in the single sleeping bag.

  Finally, his dick deflated.

  Las was too amazing not to have anyone in his life, and the lone sleeping bag squeezed Marco’s chest and didn’t let go. Thinking of Las out here all alone after a long day, unwinding with dinner and a fire and the sounds of nature, nobody to talk to about his day, to bounce ideas off of, to cuddle with.

  Was he still hurting from Ben’s move to England? Or—

  “What’s the point when they’ll be gone at the end of their contract?”

  There was something in that statement that Marco needed to unpack. Right now wasn’t the time.

  After boiling water, washing the dishes, and leaving them out to dry in the breeze, Las produced a flashlight from thin air and led the way—Marco checked the compass clipped to his belt loop—west.

  They only went as far as the Little Wyoming River. Seated next to each other on a boulder near the bank, they could still see Las’s campsite and the dying fire less than fifty feet away. The sun had long set behind the mountains, and night, Marco learned, fell incredibly quickly in the forest.

  “New moon tonight,” Las said, turning off the flashlight. “Perfect.”

  Was it though? A moon would’ve at least provided some illumination. Jesus, the forest was dark at night. Tree trunks turned a mottled brown; shrubs drooped gloomily; low-hanging branches looked like reaching fingers. He shifted a little closer to Las.

  On this part of Windsor Ranch land, the river was shallow, more of a stream as it burbled its way south over pebbles and fallen tree limbs. The occasional crackling of the fire behind them, the trickling of the river ahead of them, the warmth of Las’s right side snuggled against his left… Marco was torn between the magic of the night and the fear of predatory wildlife.

  Las didn’t seem worried though, so Marco set aside the potential for being food and said, “What are we doing?”

  It was dark, but Marco could see still Las’s excited grin.

  Las pointed up. “Look.”

  Marco did and—“Holy crap.” He flew off the boulder, his feet sinking into the swampy earth next to the river. His chest went prickly and he grinned back at Las. “Holy shit, Lassiter.”

  “I know.”

  The sky… It was… Just… “Holy fuck.”

  Las was laughing at him, but Marco didn’t care.

  Against a horizon gone black, thousands of silver bullets freckled the sky. Some were in clumps, others in pairs or small groups, others on their own. The ones farthest away, too far for Marco to comprehend distance, were awash in pale blue, winking in and out depending on how hard he focused on them. And then, directly above, a cloud of white with clusters of lilac streaked across the sky.

  He whirled on Las. “Is that the Milky Way?”

  Las just smiled at him.

  “Holy shit. It’s like… Like someone took moondust and sprinkled it across the sky. Holy shit, Las.” Fuck, he was so in awe that his vocabulary had gone down the crapper. “You weren’t kidding.”

  “I… What?”

  Goosebumps erupted on the back of his neck, the vastness of space, the beauty of nature making him light-headed. He felt like he was fully awake for the first time in his life. “You said… That night, you said the Wyoming sky at night is spectacular. That there was nothing else like it. You weren’t kidding. God.” He was teary-eyed and he didn’t know why. “This is… It’s…”

  “Yeah.” Thickness in Las’s voice, but Marco couldn’t take his eyes off the heavens to check on him. “I know.”

  Several hours later, once exhaustion started creeping in, they headed back to Las’s tent and stretched the extra sleeping bag out next to Las’s.

  “Can’t we sleep under the stars?” Marco had asked on their way back.

  Marco. Who was probably afraid of fucking ants. Wanted to sleep outside.

  Las had nixed that idea in the bud. He’d never seen anything except mule deer at night near his tent—he kept a low fire going overnight to discourage unwanted guests. But still, better to play it safe.

  Lying in his sleeping bag next to Marco, dressed down to his T-shirt and briefs, Las’s heart was both too heavy and too light. The last time he’d felt like this was the day he’d received his acceptance letter to Glen Hill College—excited that he’d been accepted and he’d be moving with Ben; broken-hearted about leaving his family and his home behind.

  Marco had loved the overlook. And the sky, shit. Las never could’ve predicted Marco’s reaction to the Wyoming sky at night, to what had so clearly been his first-ever glimpse of the Milky Way.

  Could never have predicted what Marco’s love of both would do to Las’s emotions. He was teetering on the brink of something huge, and it scared him shitless. His heart pounded so fast that he pressed a fist to his chest.

  Lying on his back, eyes having acclimated to the dark, he rotated his head to look at Marco. Nestled on his stomach in the folds of his sleeping bag only a foot away, head resting on his crossed arms, hair fanned across his cheeks and over one eye.

  “Lassiter,” he whispered as if he could feel Las’s gaze on him with his eyes closed.

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” He tucked a strand of hair behind Marco’s ear, and even in the dark, he would’ve sworn Marco smiled.

  DOWNTOWN WINDSOR HAD AN OLD West vibe. The Starbucks was out of place, but the rest of it was as Marco remembered from his drive through. Wide streets, curbside parking, shops and restaurants made of rustic wood snugly nestled together with narrow alleyways between them, green ski slopes in the distance.

  It was busy on a Saturday morning as Marco and Las exited the diner they’d just had breakfast in. Cars passed by with can
oes or kayaks strapped to their roofs. Shoppers came and went from stores and art galleries. Tourists stood on street corners, staring in bewilderment at a town map. Couples and young families dined on the terrace of the three breakfast restaurants. Employees redesigned window displays and brought out sandwich boards advertising the day’s sales. Friends ran into each other on the sidewalk and stopped to chat. A staff member from an outfitter across the street seemed to be giving instructions for whatever tour they were headed out on.

  After a relatively quiet week learning the ropes while the Windsor Ranch House was at half capacity, Marco enjoyed the fast-paced friendliness of downtown. Generally, he preferred solitude to crowds; in that respect, the ranch suited him well, but the change of scenery was nice.

  Las, his nearly black hair made almost auburn by the sun, slipped a pair of sunglasses on his nose. “Was there anything in particular you wanted to see?”

  “What do you recommend?”

  “This way.”

  They headed up the street and crossed the road at the intersection, bringing them to the entrance of Windsor Town Square. It wasn’t that big, maybe the size of the quad on campus. A paved path ran lengthwise and crosswise from one end to the other. Leafy trees and forty-foot pines dominated the space. In the middle, encircled by a small garden of low bushes containing tiny red flowers, was an iron monument of a man on horseback dedicated to Augustus Windsor, the founder of the town.

  Marco side-eyed Las.

  “Don’t say it.”

  “Okay, Your Majesty.”

  “Fuck you,” Las tossed back with a chuckle. With an elbow nudge to Marco’s side, he jerked his chin in the other direction. “Want to check out the market?”

  An outdoor market was set up on the other half of the square, peaked white tents on stilts shading vendors from the sun.

  “This is cool,” Marco said, eyeing a vendor sampling hot sauces and another selling French pastries. “Damn. We should’ve come here for breakfast.”

  “Next week.”

  Marco tried not to let the fact that Las was making future plans with him go to his head.

  Last night had been . . . just magic. He felt like an idiot even thinking the word, as if he was some easily-swept-off-his-feet preteen swayed by dinner and a light show. But the delicious dinner cooked over a fire and the jungle-like forest and the snaking river reflecting the stars… Las was showing him the true definition of the word magic.

  Las had opened up to him. Not with words so much as with actions, showing Marco the places that were important to him. It said more than Las no doubt thought it did that two of his favorite spots—ones he considered his—were remote and difficult to get to. And bonus: no moths! Or, if there’d been any, Las had kindly not pointed them out.

  Marco had been awakened at daybreak by a full bladder; despite how badly he’d needed to get up to relieve himself, he’d nevertheless taken a few minutes to admire Las’s sleeping form. The sweep of his eyelashes. The pout of his lips. The hair sticking up in wild tufts. The overnight stubble. Choking back the need to run the tips of his fingers over Las’s jaw, he’d eventually quietly gotten up, found his hoodie to ward off the dawn crispness, unzipped the tent, and headed out.

  And found a deer standing by the fire pit.

  “Las,” he’d whisper-shouted so as to not startle the animal. “Lassiter!”

  But Las kept sleeping.

  With the birds so loud in the trees that Marco couldn’t hear the river and arrows of sunbeams filtering through branches, he forgot all about his bladder. Slowly, he sat, right there in the dirt in front of the tent, and had a staring contest with the deer. It was a little thing, a baby maybe. Short, white tail, no antlers. It stood on four legs, eyeing him, wary and alert, until something Marco couldn’t hear spooked it and it bounded into the woods.

  “Try this,” Las said now, handing him a cracker topped with jam from a vendor selling homemade jams and jellies.

  Marco got them each a lemonade from a different vendor, ginger-flavored for himself, regular ol’ lemon for Las. They strolled from one tent to the next, unhurried, taking advantage of a day off.

  In Marco’s case, taking advantage of a morning with Las and milking it for all it was worth.

  They sampled fudge and chocolate, dips and olive oils, oohed and aahed over handmade pottery and wooden serving bowls. Marco bought handmade jewelry for his sisters, a scented soy candle for his mom, and beard oil for his dad. They visited glass and leather artisans, avoided anything baby- or cat-themed, and spent too much time with a vendor selling custom cowboy hats.

  “It looks great.” There was a gleam in Las’s dark eyes as he sucked on the straw of his lemonade.

  “Yeah?” Marco reached up to touch the brim of his new hat. Made of tan felt that was soft on his hands, a dark brown strip of leather decorated with rectangular hammered silver inset with aquamarine stones ringed the hatband. It was fancy compared to his knit beanies and Glen Hill College hockey baseball hats. “Doesn’t feel like me.”

  “Suits you.” Las brushed past him with a wink. “You look like a real cowboy now.”

  Las was flirting with him. Again. What did it mean that Las didn’t want to date him but kept flirting with him? Was he naturally a flirt? Maybe. Marco didn’t know him well enough yet to say for sure, although his gut said no. Was flirting Las’s version of being friendly? Also a possibility.

  Or, more baffling, was Las into him?

  Marco could understand why Las had said no in the first place, back in April. Not only had he been stood up that night, but they’d been only a few weeks from graduation, from going in separate directions.

  But now they were both here. Did that mean Las had changed his mind about them dating?

  Now wasn’t the time to have a conversation about it. Tabling it for the moment, he shoved his confusion to the back of his mind and continued through the market, Las at his side.

  The market was busy, filled with selfie stick-wielding tourists, parents pushing strollers or corralling kids, spandex-wearing joggers, teenagers in groups of five or six, and everyone in between. The end of the aisle dead-ended into a T; they went left.

  At that end of that aisle, a tent twice as large as anyone else’s sheltered shelves and pillars displaying photographs of varying sizes.

  “Wow.” Marco detoured in that direction, almost tripping himself up on the wheels of a stroller.

  The photo that caught his eye was a framed one sized at twenty-four inches by thirty-six, according to the sticker in the top right corner. Taken during a cloudless night, the foreground was a close-up shot of a small stream running over large rocks. From there, the perspective inched upward, alighting on craggy mountain peaks, and above that, a sky so dark it was Christmas tree-green in places. The purply-blue haze of the Milky Way crossed the sky vertically about a third of the way in from the right edge; to its left, thousands of stars blazed brightly, lighting up the sky. The entire image was blues and greens and purples. It was a lot of colors for something taken in the middle of the night.

  “I need to own this,” he said and checked the price tag. “Seriously? Three hundred and sixty-five—”

  Las lifted his sunglasses to the top of his head and widened his eyes at him.

  “—dollars!” Marco finished at a lower volume.

  “This one,” Las said, jerking a chin at another framed photograph, “is twice as much.”

  Marco squinted at the watermark in the bottom right proclaiming this to be the work of Austin MacIsaac Photography. “Is this guy famous or something?”

  Las smirked. “Or something.”

  A tall guy came around the shelf, and, well . . . he was perfect. As tall as Marco with sun-kissed tan skin so smooth it appeared airbrushed, gold hair parted on the side, pale pink lips, and a chin to die for. He was about ten or twelve years older, putting him at early- to mid-thirties. Marco tried to find some flaw in him but couldn’t—

  Oh wait. His ears were too big. And his
eyes, the same aquamarine as the stones on Marco’s new hat, were too small for his face, accentuating his high forehead. And he had a smattering of pale freckles across the bridge of his nose. Actually, those were kind of cute on such a large guy.

  Okay, now he was just being nitpicky. Frankly, the guy looked like he should be gracing the cover of magazines from astride a glorious black horse.

  “Hey, Las,” Perfect Stranger said.

  Wait, Las knew him? Marco’s attention whipped from one to the other.

  “Hey, man.”

  Perfect Stranger held a print between the palms of both hands, toward Marco, like he was displaying it at an auction. “Can I offer you a print instead? Only twenty bucks.”

  Attention diverted, Marco snatched it out of his hands. “Sold.”

  “And since you’re a friend of my brother’s, I’ll even give you twenty percent off.”

  “Brother?” Marco said over his shoulder to Las as he followed Perfect Stranger to a little table in the back corner. “I thought you only had a sister.”

  Picking up a cell phone that had a credit card reader sticking out of the earbud jack, Perfect Stranger mock gasped. “Only a sister? I am hurt and confused.”

  “I spent a lot of time at Austin’s house growing up,” Las explained. “He was like an older brother to me.”

  “Like an older brother? Twist the knife in deeper, why don’t you?”

  Las rolled his eyes. “Give it up, will you? Marco, this idiot is Austin MacIsaac.” He turned to Perfect Stranger—Austin. “Marco and I went to college together. He’s working on the ranch for the summer.”

  “Oh yeah?” Austin said, dropping the sarcasm. “How are you liking it?”

  Marco shrugged. “It’s peaceful.”

  One eyebrow went up. “Peaceful? The kids are out of school next week. If you find another peaceful moment between now and the beginning of September, I’ll buy you a beer.”

  “It will get crazy starting Monday,” Las confirmed. “The third week of June is the start of our busy season.”

  Austin handed the phone to Marco. On the screen was a little checkout page waiting for payment details.